James White
by wishfulmagic
Summary: You can't be gone forever, eventually you get found, and then there is a whole lot of explaining to do. Harry Potter couldn't deal with the aftermath of the war so he disappears and starts a new life, only to be found. Not epilogue compliant.
1. James and Stella

Author's note: Just an idea that popped in my head, I've never really been content with the "epilogue". I know its short but I just wanted to get some reactions before I continued on. So please review but no serious critiques, this is all for fun and hate/harsh mail is a downer. Oh and the lyrics at the beginning are fine on their own but the songs can also be played if you like background music, to you know "set the mood". KK so read on readers...

Disclaimer: Yea if you don't recognize them they're mine, if you do then their not...

* * *

I've been beaten down,

I've been kicked around,

but she takes it all for me.

And I lost my faith in my darkest days,

but she makes me want to believe.

They call her love, love, love, love, love.

They call love love love love love

She is love and she is all I need.

She's all I need.

-She Is Love, Parachute

The apartment was cool and dark when he walked in. He could see a glow of light as he walked down the foyer, it grew brighter as he neared his bedroom door. His wife always left the light on outside the door on the occasions she went to bed before he came home. He turned off the lamp and walked to the bedroom trying to make the least amount of noise possible as to not wake her sprawled out on the bed. He never got tired of watching her sleep. Her hair fanned out around her and she griped a pillow as if it were a life raft keeping her from drowning in the big bed. He quickly changed and climbed into bed next to her pulling her closer to him, she was his life raft. Yes, James White considered himself the luckiest man in the world to be married to the woman in his arms. He liked to call Stella his cure because she took away all his pain and made him feel like he wasn't as broken as he actually was.

The light from the moon reflected off his wife's ring, and he reflected how much the ring resembled her. Unlike traditional engagement rings, the large stone in the center of the ring was not a diamond but a sapphire. It was an old fashioned looking ring with the rectangular sapphire in the center and two rectangular diamonds flanking it. It was classic in style, like his wife but still had a eye-catching quality that she too shared. James remembered walking into the store where her good friend worked and he saying that he had just the ring for her. And he was right, she had loved the ring, and even better said yes. Their bands were plainer, she spotted them while out shopping and had turned to him and said that that was the band she wanted and she wanted "Rain or Shine" engraved on the inside. It had seemed like a peculiar request at the time and after he had asked why she didn't talk to him the whole way home from the jeweler's. When they had got home she went straight into the bedroom closet and pulled down a red shoe box. She told him to sit and then sat next to him and out of the shoe box she pulled a valentines card. He had remembered then, it was from their first official valentines day as a couple, he used the term official because their true first valentines day was the day they met. He had forgotten about that day being valentines day and consequently forgot to get a card, by the time he had made it to a store all that was left was a card met for a small child with a puppy on the front and an inside that read "Rain or Shine You'll Always Be Mine" as cheesy as he thought it was, she had loved it. James took off the band he wore and etched on the inside he could faintly read "rain or shine" and that too made him smile.

If you're under the impression I'm alright.

I guess you never noticed.

I guess you might have known

I've been holding this together for so long.

But I guess you might have noticed.

Well I guess you...

-You Might Have Noticed, The Academy Is...

James got up and went to wash his face, he didn't know what it was tonight but he couldn't sleep and he knew that it probably had something to do with the fact that while it was James White that had married the perfect girl and who had gotten up to wash his face it was still and always would be Harry Potter who looked out at him from the mirror.

True the hair color was different and the scar magically concealed but the same green eyes stared back at him. He didn't intend for it to go this far, that was partially untrue, he didn't really know what he had intended. All Harry knew was that he had to get out of England, away from the tragedy left in the wake of the war. It was too much, too much death, too much crying, and too much gratitude. Yes no matter how many lives he might have cost, people still thanked him. Harry had never taken recognition and praise well but this was especially hard to swallow. So after the funerals of those who had fallen were over and talk turned to the future, specifically his, Harry left in the middle of the night. He filled his school trunk and left only a scrap of paper on the table of Grimmauld Place with the note: I'll be fine. He made it to Heathrow Airport deciding against a portkey station where he could be spotted, changed his hair color in the men's room to a blond and covered his scar, and magically confunded his way onto a plane heading across the pond to New York City. Somehow Harry managed to stumble into the wizarding part of the city and got into a bar where firewiskey was definitely on the menu. That was the start of it, his journey that lead him here, because sitting a little down the bar were two men who were discussing a particular problem at their work.

"The company is going to go down the toilet if these new hires don't start showing some ability," the first man grimly said to the second.

"What has our education come too when adult wizards can't ever produce a proper shield charm," the second replied.

"A shield charm? Half those wizards couldn't disarm a five-year-old," scoffed the first, "the man we hired to train them is only prepared to train them protocol, there isn't a possible way for him to train them in basic defense in time for us to dispatch them to the clients."

"One week, I could teach your men to disarm, block, and stun in one week," Harry turned to the men, "I overheard your conversation and I think I could be your solution."

"Hump, why should we believe you, what makes you think you could possibly manage something like that?" the first man asked.

"Give me a week, pay me 200 galleons and if you aren't impressed after the week we part ways, you go back to trying to salvage your business and I go off in search of a new job," Harry offered.

"Young man you have got yourself one week, and if at the end of that we are impressed we can address the possibility of a more permeant arrangement," spoke the second man, "Now, what is your name?"

"James White"

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Hope you liked it. Leave a nice note and I'll keep going, I'll prolly keep going anyway but the note helps =)


	2. Good Morning Sunshine

**AN: Here's chpt 2! Its a little longer, I'm always conflicted between writing more and trying to get them up as quickly as possible. I am trying to work faster. K so I love you all and I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it isn't mine! simple as that.**

Harry was woken up by music coming from the direction of the kitchen. He turned over and looked at the alarm clock that was sitting on the side table next to him, the time read 7:30. He rolled back over and stared at the ceiling, sun was streaming through the tall windows on the east side of the room, and he strained to hear the song that was playing in the kitchen. Last nights thoughts resurfaced again, how he ended up here in this place, almost five and a half years after the day he defeated Voldemort. Harry didn't want to get up, it was early for him, he didn't have to be at work till 9:00, and his job was so close to the apartment that he just walked there every day. Just as Harry decided that 30 more minutes of sleep were in order the intoxicating smell of bacon reached him. After some deliberation, he decided to forgo sleep for bacon and with much effort climbed out of bed.

He walked into the kitchen with a yawn and stopped to admire the scene in front of him. Stella hadn't noticed him walk into the room, she was too busy cooking and simultaneously dancing to the music that was coming from the stereo in the adjoining living room. She was dressed in of a pair of his boxers and one of her brother's pull-overs that read Salem Institute Quodpot Champions. He wished it was his Gryffindor Quidditch sweatshirt she was wearing but he quickly pushed the idea from his mind, that was just another part of the old life he kept hidden away.

Stella had turned her spatula into a microphone. He was chuckling to himself when she noticed that he was watching her. She took the bacon and eggs off the stove and danced over to him, grabbing both of his arms and forcing him to dance with her. By the end of the song the two of them were laughing, Harry especially had a huge grin on his face. It was hard to be sad or down or haunted by your past around Stella, it was one of his favorite things about her, nothing ever seemed so bad after a kiss and a smile from her.

"James honey, you want breakfast?" Stella asked walking back towards the stove.

"Sure, since you got me up," he teased her, while walking over to the kitchen table. Harry loved the kitchen, it was painted a bright cheery yellow and everything in it was mixed-matched and colorful. It was the kind of kitchen that evoked pictures of pancake breakfasts and the celebration of birthday cakes.

"Sorry," she smiled as she began filling a plate with bacon and eggs, "I have to go into work a little early, I have to make sure everything is in order before I leave for Chicago."

"Oh you're going to Chicago? Thats today?" Harry managed to get out through a mouthful of eggs.

"Charmant," she said wrinkling her nose at the display. Again he was flooded with memories, this time of the burrow; Bill and Fleur's wedding, when Fleur's father had declared everything charmant. Harry shook himself. It wasn't normal for him to reminisce about his old life, he tried to keep it locked far away. Stella's voice interrupted his thoughts, "But yes, I leave tonight."

"Are you leaving from work?" Harry waited till after he took a sip of apple juice to pose the question.

"No, I'm just going in to pick up a few things and then come home and pack. I don't have to leave till later tonight so I'll wait for you to get home," she smiled at him "But I'm going to go change now, so please just clean up, okay?" Stella walked into the second bedroom of their apartment.

Yes, the second bedroom, Stella needed her own closet, so they turned the second bedroom into her office/closet/guest bedroom. At first Harry couldn't understand it, how could a girl have that many shoes? He had grown up with Hermione and Ginny who, while most defiantly being female, never were very girly. He had never seen so many clothes. It was a completely odd for him to see the boxes of clothing that moved in with her. Even odder was how much he enjoyed the way she dressed, not that he would be able to describe it, it was just ...nice. He watched her as she walked out of the second bedroom and into the bathroom where, he knew, she would be applying make-up. Again not something he was altogether used to, but she wasn't one to cake it on and often she'd go with out, so he had adapted to that as well.

He hadn't moved from his spot when she came out wearing a suit with a tight black skirt and matching blazer with a shiny purple top and a broach (was that what it was called?) on the lapel. He noticed she was wearing the pearl earrings he had gotten her for her birthday to match the pearl necklace that was one of the few gifts from her mother she loved.

Stella's relationship with her family was not anything like he knew either, she was the youngest of four in a family that was nothing like the warmth of the Weasley's. Stella came from one of the oldest family's on the island - wizarding or otherwise and it meant a great deal to Stella's family. It would have reminded him of the Blacks, except for the fact that the Van Winkle's didn't care about purity of blood. All they wanted was Image which meant good marriages and for none of their children to embarrass the family name. Stella's childhood was all a lot of rules and focus on image, which would explain at the ripe age of fifteen, headstrong Stella ran away from home and traveled a great deal of the world before returning to Manhattan with a lot more experience and a little more tolerance. That was another thing that amazed him about her, she seemed like running away and traveling on her own would be to grueling for a girl like her. Maybe it was the blonde hair, the privileged upbringing or the size of her closet but he wouldn't have believed she could have done it at only fifteen. But as he knew, maybe too well, age really was no indicator of what someone could do, after all, look what he had done by age fifteen. "Snap out of it James" he told himself. Why was his past so keen on springing up today?

Again he was awakened from his thoughts by Stella, who was now dressed for work and kissing him goodbye.

"You should probably get dressed for work hun," she said as she turned to leave, "and please don't forget the dishes, it will only take a wave of your wand." And with that she exited the apartment leaving a trail of intoxicating perfume. He got up and headed towards his bedroom to change for work, flicking his wand as he went so that the dishes started to magically do themselves.

* * *

Sphinx Security was a very large imposing building located in By Road, New York's equivalent to Diagon Alley. It was not the largest building in the magical community, after all NYC was known for its sky scrapers muggle and wizarding alike, but it defiantly was one of the more unique looking ones. To anyone who didn't know differently it appeared as if there wasn't an entrance to the building, only a smooth wall of grey concrete with an intercom in the dead center. If it wasn't one of the few magic only parts of New York, the people might have been disconcerted watching people seemingly walk straight through a concrete wall. But it was, so they weren't. Besides no one arond there ever seemed very interested in their surroundings, merely only interested in getting where they were going. Which is why no one seemed particularly interested in the blond man who stepped out from one of the old brownstone residences that mingled amongst the shops, as he distractedly walked along the main street and without as much as a second thought disappeared through the concrete wall.

The company Harry had so easily gained an opportunity to work for five and a half years ago hardly resembled the company he worked for now. That man, Mr. Lavigne as Harry had learned his name to be, must have known something he didn't when he was so quick to give Harry a chance. Since that fateful meeting and the institution of Harry's training program, which has since expanded and become more comprehensive, Sphinx Security had become the leading security company in American and was beginning to expand globally.

After walking through the wall that was the entrance to Sphinx Securities, a task that was all too reminiscent of entering Platform 9 and 3/4, and repressing yet another memory of his former life, Harry made his way to the elevators. He pressed 24 and stepped back to make more room for others to enter the elevator. A few of the others smiled or nodded with recognition as they entered but for the most part people were indifferent. That was harder getting used to that Harry would like to have admitted, going from The Chosen One to just another someone. It wasn't that he missed the fame, it was just unusual for him to walk down the street or go out to eat with out heads turning and eyes flicking up to his forehead.

The elevator was nearly empty when it reached his floor and he got out. His office was fairly large, the partners had deemed it appropriate when they named him head of SecuriWizard Department. Spinx Security offered its clients not only magical protection in the form of complex patented spells and charms but also highly trained (thanks to Harry) SecuriWizards on site. He focused on the training and efficiency of the SecuriWizards while the head of the Spells department focused on...well, the spells.

As he approached his office, his assistant Joey rose.

"Mr. White, the partners have called down and the requested that I tell you to go directly to them when you get in this morning".

"Okay then," Harry said turning around and heading back towards the elevators.

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**I'm off to write more...**


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